


Guide Him Through the Storm

by somanyofthekids



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, BAMF Peggy Carter, Child Abuse, Gen, Guide Peggy Carter, Guide Tony Stark, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, I fucking mean it when I say Pre-Slash my dudes, M/M, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter is Tony Stark's Godparent, Pre-Slash, Sentinel James Rhodes, Sentinel/Guide, Teenage Tony Stark, author wholesale makes up medical shit, sentinel bucky barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24154816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somanyofthekids/pseuds/somanyofthekids
Summary: Pepper and Tony sat on the floor of Tony’s bedroom, pamphlets scattered around them like some kind of glossy paper orgy. Titles likeEmpathy and You: A Guide for GuidesandYou’re a Sentinel! How to Navigate Your New Sensory InputandWhat Will You Do When YOU Zone?looked up from the carpet.“I still can’t believe they’re testing you so young, no one gets tested before they’re twenty-one,” said Pepper with a worried frown as she picked up another pamphlet. “Isn’t it supposed to be dangerous if you get tested this early in adolescence?”Tony shrugged.“I guess if I develop a brain tumor after today, at least the research will have one more case study.”
Relationships: Angie Martinelli & Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Peggy Carter & Tony Stark, Peggy Carter/Angie Martinelli, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark
Comments: 43
Kudos: 269





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY PALS HOWS THIS FOR UNEXPECTED. 
> 
> Here's the deal: there's like a fifty-fifty chance I'll never write any more than what's here right now. I wrote this like three? four? years ago, and recently rediscovered it. I've read it three times since then and found it pretty enjoyable despite the lack of real ending, so I'm tossing it up here for any other sen/guide obsessed hoes Like Myself. 
> 
> It's tagged Tony/Bucky because that's the direction I was headed, but there's not actually much contact between the two before I stopped writing. Once again to be clear, I _might_ add to it because the storyline I had planned looks fun, but also I'm barely involved in any Marvel shit these days so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Pepper and Tony sat on the floor of Tony’s bedroom, pamphlets scattered around them like some kind of glossy paper orgy. Titles like _Empathy and You: A Guide for Guides_ and _You’re a Sentinel! How to Navigate Your New Sensory Input_ and _What Will You Do When YOU Zone?_ looked up from the carpet. 

“I still can’t believe they’re testing you so young, _no one_ gets tested before they’re twenty-one,” said Pepper with a worried frown as she picked up another pamphlet. “Isn’t it supposed to be dangerous if you get tested this early in adolescence?”

Tony shrugged. 

“It’s not like they could make the migraines worse.”

Pepper frowned harder. 

“They might! I’ve been researching since we talked on Thursday, and there’s a shocking lack of information on how the sentinel and guide areas of the brain develop during puberty.” She huffed, puffing her bangs off her forehead. “All the money for medical research goes into giving old men boners, there’s practically nothing for research into health issues of minorities-”

“It’ll be fine Pep. There’s only like a four-ish percent chance I have enhanced senses anyway,” Tony cut in, as if he didn’t know there was exactly a 4.12% chance of becoming a sentinel or guide when his parents were neither.

Pepper looked at him sharply. 

“We don’t even know what the test consists of, Tony! And the fact that they’re doing it on a Sunday morning, when the Center is usually closed…” Pepper trailed off into a fretful silence as Tony shrugged again. They were both aware that most likely Howard had paid for the whole thing to happen under the table. Off the books and undocumented. There wasn’t anything they could do about it. 

_Think of the devil and he shall appear_ , thought Tony as Howard burst open the door without knocking, making them both flinch. 

“What are you doing still sitting here? Get in the car!” he barked before turning on his heel and marching down the hallway. 

Tony took a deep breath and pasted an obviously false grin on his face. 

“I guess if I develop a brain tumor after today, at least the research will have one more case study!” 

Pepper pursed her lips and flung her arms around Tony in a hug.

She pulled back to look Tony in the eye and shook a finger at him. 

“You’re going to call me as soon as you get home from the test, right?” 

Tony nodded, throat too tight with nerves to speak as he stood to follow his father.

“See you soon, Pep.”

* * *

“Mr. Stark!” greeted the man just inside the lobby of the Center for Enhanced Senses. “Good to see you!” 

Howard shook the man’s hand with a grin. 

“It’s good to see you too, Mr. Benoit. Thanks again for doing this for us, we really appreciate it.”

“No, no, I completely understand. Better to keep your private life private!” Mr. Benoit said heartily. 

‘ _Private’, right,_ thought Tony with a snort. Tony calculated that there was approximately a zero point zero percent chance of Howard keeping his mouth closed if Tony turned out to be a sentinel. He’d probably hire a skywriter. 

Three days ago, when they’d first had the conversation that led them here, Tony had honestly wondered for a moment if his dad was going to have a stroke. They’d been having a Stark patented Uncomfortably Silent™ dinner, when Howard made his obligatory once-a-month attempt at conversation. 

“Didn’t you have an appointment or something today? My secretary said something about it,” Howard asked before shoving another forkful of salad in his mouth. 

Tony didn’t look up from his plate, but nodded. 

“I had an appointment with the neurologist about my migraines.”

Howard’s forehead wrinkled. 

“You still get those?”

Tony didn’t dare sigh, but he sure fucking wanted to. 

“Yeah, dad. A couple of times a week. The neurologist said it’s probably hormonal or dietary related, and gave me a list of foods with sulfites to avoid.” He could already tell his dad’s attention was wandering, but he kept talking anyway. “I have a follow up in a month, and if I’m still getting them then we’ll look into other causes, like vision problems or maybe it being a precursor symptom to coming online as a sentinel or guide-“

Howard dropped his fork loudly and Tony finally looked up. 

“A sentinel?” he asked, his expression shocked. 

“… yeah?” Tony answered slowly. “I mean, it’s not likely since neither you or mom-“

“-but there’s a chance you’re getting headaches because you’re a sentinel?” Howard eagerly asked again. 

“Migraines, not headaches-“

“Steve Rogers had headaches before the serum,” Howard said excitedly, and suddenly Tony understood.

Of-fucking-course this was about Captain America. Wasn’t everything? 

“Look, sentinels occur due to a recessive gene in the first place; you don’t have enhanced senses and neither did mom, which makes my chances pretty slim. The migraines are probably coming from some chemical preservative or something,” Tony tried reasoning, only to have Howard wave away his words like annoying gnats. 

“We need to get you tested immediately. Who’s in charge-“

“Dad! I’m sixteen, there’s like five years before they’ll even consider testing me!” Tony said, a little desperate now to keep Howard from running away with this. 

“I’m sure they’ll make an exception for a Stark,” Howard said as he got up and hurried out of the room to find the phone number he needed.

Unfortunately, Tony was sure his dad was right about them making an exception for him. Unable to stomach the rest of his dinner, Tony had left the table as well, and immediately called Pepper to find out what she knew about testing for enhanced senses. 

Which brought them back here, seated comfortably in the office of the Center’s Test Administrator Guide. She had invited them in, shooed away the Director Mr. Benoit, and calmly introduced herself as Ms. Kumar. 

“The first part of the test is a simple MRI,” she explained. “There’s a small portion of our brain, called the perithalamus, that will show increased activity if one happens to have enhanced senses. If there is none, then the test is over.” She paused before continuing. “If we do see enough activity, then we may proceed to the next step. A guide, in this case me, will sit with the test subject and gently look through their mind. Contrary to popular belief, I won’t hear your thoughts, but I may incidentally feel some of the emotions you’re currently experiencing. What I’m looking for are indications of whether you’ll be a sentinel or a guide.” Ms. Kumar paused again before looking at them seriously and saying “I want to be clear that I do not encourage the second stage of testing for someone so young. There have been no official studies done, but it’s common wisdom that testing so early can be harmful to a sentinel or guide, causing them to come online too early.”

Howard frowned. “You’re looking to see whether he’ll be a sentinel _or_ a guide? It’s not _common_ to be a guide though, is it?”

Ms. Kumar's mouth pinched a bit before smoothing out in the manner of someone well practiced. “The guide to sentinel ratio is approximately one to one. Opposed to what’s commonly believed, there aren’t fewer guides than sentinels, it’s just that fewer guides are inclined to share their status due to institutionalized bigotry. But as I was saying about testing too early-“

Howard dismissively waved his hand. 

“He’ll be fine. Let’s get on with the MRI!”

Ms. Kumar’s mouth pinched again, this time staying that way as she looked to Tony for consent. He nodded. The sooner this was over, the sooner he could go home and figure out the actual cause for his migraines. 

* * *

So, maybe it was the actual cause. Or at least one of them. Apparently his perithalamus was lit up like a lightbulb. Tony supposed this meant he could keep drinking wine, at least. And eating dried cranberries. And molasses. And sauerkraut. There were actually a fuckton of foods that contained sulfites… 

Tony knew he was a little bit in shock. He couldn’t focus on the issue at hand, couldn’t focus on what Ms. Kumar was saying, couldn’t focus on Howard’s hand on his shoulder. 

There was a small part of him, growing louder by the second, saying _Maybe you really can be like him. Maybe you can be a little like Captain America, an actual hero, maybe dad will be proud, maybe you can grow up and finally be worth his time._

Like coming up from underwater, his ears suddenly tuned back into the conversation happening in front of him. 

“-need to impress on you the dangers-“

“You said yourself there’s no official study that says this is dangerous, and besides, how could coming online early be bad? Earlier sentinel training, better sentinel!”

“Adolescent brains already have more than enough to handle without added emotional or sensory input, Mr. Stark-“

“Maybe for other people, but he’s a Stark.” Howard said this with the finality of throwing down a royal flush on the poker table. 

Ms. Kumar, finally understanding that she was conversing with a brick wall, turned to Tony. “As a 16 year old in the state of New York, you are allowed final decision over non-emergent medical procedures. We can not and will not do this test without your consent,” she said firmly. 

Tony didn’t even have to look at his dad to know that the test would be happening one way or another. Tony _could_ say no now, and they would leave, and in another three days he would have another appointment in another center in another city; possibly one where the test administrator was less concerned with his well being. So once again he nodded, and tried to ignore the worried look on Ms. Kumar’ face. 

They sat down facing each other, Tony’s hands clasped in Ms. Kumar’s, while Howard sat a few feet away, watching. 

Ms. Kumar took a moment, visibly calming herself and letting go of her conversation with Howard. 

“Alright Tony, close your eyes and breathe deeply. Try your best to clear your mind, it will make this easier for both of us,” she said in a smooth voice. 

Tony shifted in his chair a bit, trying to slow down his brain.

“Imagine putting your thoughts into boxes and stacking them against the wall, clearing out the room of your mind.”

He tried, but for every idea he shoved against the wall, another fell from the ceiling. 

Howard moved around impatiently in his chair. Tony’s attention was divided half on tracking that movement with his ear and half on trying to box up his thoughts, and he wasn’t doing well with either. 

“That’s as clear as it gets,” he said eventually, ashamed of his inability to deliver what was asked. 

Howard gave an irritated huff from his seat, and in her soothing tone, Ms. Kumar said “That’s just fine Tony, you’re doing great. Mr. Stark, if you make another noise I will stop the test and have security remove you from the room. You’re doing so well Tony.”

Tony fought the need to open his eyes to check his dad’s reaction, to see how angry he was, but he didn’t hear anything else from that direction. Just as his nerves threatened to overwhelm him, he felt an unnatural calm start to creep over him. 

“You’re going to feel my influence now. You should feel a little calmer, maybe a bit like you’re floating. Just let it carry you.”

Tony, who had been exhausted since Thursday, was more than willing to float away for a while. He felt as if he were miles inside his own mind, and nothing could reach him here. He felt soothed, and warm and… 

Impatient? Irritated? 

No, that couldn’t be right. Tony actually felt good for the first time in… well, a while anyway. 

Why did he feel impatience?

Eyes still closed, Tony’s brow furrowed as he instinctively chased the feelings that didn’t belong to him, wanting to somehow soothe them until they felt calm too. But the closer he got, the stronger the feelings were, until the safe space in his mind was drowning in peevishness and tension. The feelings were bearing down on him, crowding in and pushing at his consciousness, and he was frozen. 

A wave of panic crashed through Tony. Distantly, he knew Ms. Kumar was speaking, but he struggled to turn the sounds into words. 

“Tony, you’ve zoned in on your father’s mind, you need to come back into your own.”

“He’s in my mind?” said Howard with alarm. 

Ignoring him, Ms. Kumar continued to try to reach Tony. 

“Imagine I’m throwing you a rope; climb the rope away from those negative feelings, Tony.”

Tony couldn’t find a rope. He couldn’t find anything except disappointment and fear, pressing on every inch. He was _suffocating!_

“ _Jesus_ , he’s slipping too fast- Mr. Stark, pick up my phone and press 6, tell them we have an emergency and we need a sentinel EMT for a zone,” said Ms. Kumar firmly, without directing her focus away from Tony. 

Howard was silent for a moment before asking sharply, “You mean a guide EMT?”

“ _Your son is in danger,_ save your crisis over his guide status for later and _get him help immediately,_ ” snarled Ms. Kumar, finally losing her composure. Tony abruptly slumped in his seat, having lost consciousness. 

Howard sat still for another beat, before going to the desk and picking up the phone. He pressed 6, stated the need for an EMT in a monotone voice, and then hung up and walked out of the room. 

* * *

The first thing Tony became aware of, was that the carpet must have been recently shampooed. It smelled like something trying to be oranges, in that industrial-strength-cleaner sort of way. The scent slowly faded from his nose as he opened his eyes and looked around. His head felt like it was full of cotton, and he couldn’t remember how he got on the floor. 

“How are you feeling, Tony?”

Oh. 

Oh, that’s right. 

He closed his eyes again. 

“I’m fine.”

He opened his eyes again and sat up, pausing for a moment as he realized his head was coming up from the lap of a man in an EMT jumpsuit. The man immediately started taking Tony’s pulse and checking the dilation of his pupils as Ms. Kumar watched. _He’s a_ s _entinel_ , thought Tony dazedly. _Because I’m a guide. And I needed a sentinel to pull me out of a zone. Like a guide does. Because I’m a guide._

As the sentinel worked, he responded to Tony. 

“Not sure what your definition of ‘fine’ is, but mine doesn’t usually include a traumatic zone. You fell pretty deep there, Tony. I pulled you out using scent, are you still smelling anything particularly strong?”

Tony shook his head. 

“I’m going to need words, Tony.”

He struggled for a moment to translate the clouds floating through his head. 

“I could smell the carpet when I first woke up, but everything’s normal now.”

“Alright.” The sentinel sat back from Tony. “Physically you seem to be ok, but from what Ms. Kumar said, you fell into the zone unusually fast and deep. You should get checked out by a specialist-“

“Not going to a hospital.” Tony’s mind was anything but clear, but he knew this. He wasn’t going to go talk to a stranger about his guide brain before he’d even had a chance to think about it himself.

The sentinel paused. 

“… Technically it’s your choice, but I really, _really_ recommend that you go.”

Ms. Kumar added, “Tony… I don’t want to alarm you, but I’ve never personally seen someone so close to the edge. Zones aren’t uncommon, but yours was abnormally intense to say the least."

Tony shook his head insistently again. The EMT sighed and pulled out a little bottle before packing up his medical bag. He shook one pill out of the bottle and handed it to Tony. 

“Take this. It’ll block empathic input for about two hours, long enough for you to get someplace with an experienced guide who can shield for you until you learn how. Technically this is off-label use of what’s actually a blood pressure medication, but since no pharmaceutical companies do actual research into enhanced senses… anyway, this medication is only used in emergencies and will do real damage if you take it regularly, so don’t go thinking it’s an acceptable substitute for learning how to shield.” He looked hard at Tony to make sure he understood. “I’ll leave you with the capable Ms. Kumar, then. Hope you feel better soon, Tony.” The door clicked as he shut it behind him. There was silence for a moment.

“Did my dad leave?” he asked Ms. Kumar quietly. 

She slowly nodded. 

“He was my ride,” Tony said distantly. He felt as if his own voice was coming from far away. Nothing about the situation felt real. 

“We can get you a ride. Home or somewhere else,” said Ms. Kumar, pausing before continuing. “Preferably somewhere else. I’m not sure your father is… equipped to care for someone after a zone. Do you have any other family?”

The _no_ was poised on the tip of his tongue, before he swallowed it back. He did have other family. At least, according to the Catholic church he did. He hadn’t seen her since his mom’s funeral, but she would know exactly what to do with a guide. She was one, after all. He nodded. 

“Margaret Carter.”


	2. Chapter 2

The Asset slowly became aware of the cryo-chamber around him. He held completely still, waiting for more information about his surroundings, waiting for the flow of Russian… but no. His directions didn’t come in Russian anymore. They came in English. 

The door of the cryo-chamber opened and The Asset finally moved his fingers, the ache in his joints familiar, although unremembered. A heavily armed guard aimed a gun at him. The Asset catalogued the tremble in his shoulder, the scar near his right eye. Four strikes to neutralize him. 

“Report to decontamination and then the briefing room.”

The Asset stepped out and immediately noticed the chair behind the guard. His mind blanked. 

“Decontamination. Now,” the guard said aggressively. 

The Asset complied. 

* * *

The primary target smirked in a photo sitting in front of The Asset. A similar, younger version of the face with a more honest smile looked up from another photo; the secondary target. 

“Preferred method: apparent accident. Primary target dead, secondary target also dead if available,” a man in a suit said.

The Asset stared at both photographs. 

“Further information on the targets required.”

The man in the suit furrowed his brow. “You’ve read the file. Opportunities for mission execution are listed, as well as possible points of observation. You don’t need anything else.”

“Further information on the target required,” The Asset repeated. 

“What? What information?” The man in the suit sounded exasperated.

The Asset hesitated, flashes of a wide grin and a hip flask and hand tools scattered around, seated next to a blond, flickering in his mind… “Is this a previous target?”

The man in the suit stilled. “Why?”

“The target is… recognizable,” The Asset stared at the smirk. “… I know him.”

The man in the suit cursed, kicking the table leg. He ran his hands through his hair in frustration and turned to the armed guard. 

“Wipe him.”

* * *

“Do you know this man?”

“…engineer… pilot, left handed-”

“Wipe him.”

* * *

“Who is this?”

“...”

“Report. Do you know this man?”

“Strategic- Strategic-”

“Wipe him.”

* * *

“Who is this man?”

“Male, approximately sixty, signs of late alcoholism.”

“Do you know him?”

“No. Mission?”

The man in the suit sighed in relief. 

“Yes.”


	3. Chapter 3

It turned out Aunt Peggy was out of touch, handling an emergency at work, but Aunt Angie was home, and soon Tony was seated at their kitchen table, staring at a plateful of manicotti as she chattered cheerfully around him. 

“That Ms. Kumar lady said you needed some proper zone aftercare, so it’s a good thing you’re here. I could write a book on it, I tell ya. Pegs always swears up and down after a zone that she doesn’t want to eat, yet every time her plate gets emptied. You’d think after thirty years together she’d learn to just let me take care of her. Nothing like a plateful of pasta to perk someone up, it was certainly my ma’s solution to everything.”

Tony’s head had started to clear up during the drive, and now he was silently screaming at himself. Why was he here? Why did he give Aunt Peggy’s phone number to Ms. Kumar? He hadn’t seen Peggy in four years, there was little doubt that she didn’t want anything to do with him. Angie probably felt the same and was just feeding him as a distraction so she could call Peggy to demand she come take him back to Howard- 

“Woah, woah there Tony!” cut in Aunt Angie. “Slow breaths, sloooooow…” 

Tony hadn’t even realized he was hyperventilating. He shook his head, backing his chair up from the table, ready to walk out the front door. 

“ _ Patatino _ , you sit back down right this instant!!”

It was the use of the nickname that stalled him. He hadn’t been called  _ Patatino _ since… well, probably since the last time he saw Angie. Only his mom and Aunt Angie had ever used it. 

“That’s right, breathe with me  _ Patatino _ ,” Angie said, exaggerating her breaths to help Tony follow along. “Good boy.  _ No one _ walks away from a full plate of my pasta.”

That startled a laugh out of Tony. 

“Not even if you’re calling them a little potato?” he said shakily.

Satisfied that he wasn’t about to run, Angie sat down at the table next to Tony. 

“ _ Especially _ if I call them a little potato. Now eat up while I tell you about the rotten movie Peggy and I saw last week. You wouldn’t believe what passes for acting these days…”

Angie could talk like the flow of a river, constant and never needing direction from anyone else, running around rough edges until even the sharpest stones were smooth and ready to be handled. She talked about horrible actors, and then good actors, and then good plots, and then bad plots, and then bad subtext, and then good subtext, until she finally arrived at Hollywood’s insistence that there can never be more than one minority per film. 

“It’s just plain stupid! We have these fantastic worlds where everyone you meet is a double agent and knows judo, but apparently having two guides together in one room is just too much of a stretch to the imagination. Ridiculous. After all, we all know that birds of a feather flock to Peggy and Angie’s house when something mysterious has happened at the Center for Enhanced Senses. Do you want seconds?”

Tony jolted and looked down at his plate, surprised to see it empty. 

“Told ya,” Angie said, with a smirk. “Always hungry after a zone.” For the first time that day, Tony managed a genuine smile back. Just then the front door opened, and they heard high heeled shoes pause in the entryway. 

“Tony?” came Aunt Peggy’s voice, sounding astonished. 

Tony got up and went into the entryway, one hand in his pocket, the other giving half a wave. 

“Hey Aunt Peggy,” he said, still unsure whether she would welcome him. That question was answered a flash later by the bone crushing hug she gave him, lasting a full 2 minutes. If either of them sniffled, at least no one mentioned it later. 

Angie drew them all into the living room to sit on the couch together after she’d judged their “Moment” to be over. 

Peggy, normally so sure of herself, was stumbling a bit over her words. 

“Tony, what are you- I could feel you as soon as I walked in the house, how are you here? When did you learn you were a- why have you come online so early?”

And this was the part Tony wasn’t sure how to handle. Aunt Peggy was his godmother, at his father’s request. They hadn’t interacted in front of Tony for years, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still friends. He needed to be selective about the facts. 

“I… I’m here because my ride left me, and Aunt Angie came to pick me up. I just learned about the guide thing this morning, which is also when I came online, because I’m an overachiever?” His voice ended on an upturn, seeing the unimpressed look on Peggy’s face. 

“Hm,” Peggy said, lips pursed. “Let’s see if I can fill in the other ninety percent of the story you’re not telling me. Your ride was Howard, and it was at his behest and bribery that you were being tested in the first place, years before anyone with morals would do so. The premature test led to both the revelation and activation of your status as a guide, after which Howard pitched a fit and ran away.”

“Oh so close, English, but no cigar,” chirped in Angie. “Your mind reading skills must be getting rusty. You missed the part where Tony zoned immediately after coming online, and Howard abandoned him while he was still in the middle of it.”

“I see,” said Peggy stone faced.

“I bet you do, so I’m gonna remind you that Tony’s here because he needs our help, not because he needs someone murdered.”

Peggy muttered something that sounded like  _ but what If  _ **I** _ need someone murdered, _ before taking a deep breath and having a good look at Tony. She took in the smudges underneath his eyes and the slumped posture, making him look more like the 12 year old boy she’d seen last rather than the teen he actually was. 

“Alright,” she said abruptly. “You need a nap.”

“I need- what?” asked Tony, confused. 

“A nap.”

“I don’t-“

“You need to learn how to shield and ground yourself, how to prevent yourself from projecting, and how to handle yourself around a sentinel - and you can do none of that on whatever amount of energy you have now. Naptime. Do you remember where your room is?”

Dazedly, Tony said, “I still have a room here?”

Angie and Peggy exchanged a heartbroken look. 

“Of course you do,  _ Patatino, _ ” said Angie. “We even still have robot sheets on the bed for you.”

Tony gave an exhausted little snort laugh, but got up and headed down the hallway to his room. He really was too tired to do anything other than follow direction, and this bedroom had always felt a little more like home anyway. He was asleep before he hit the pillow. 

* * *

As soon as they heard the door to Tony’s room close, Peggy was up pacing back and forth through the living room. 

“Pegs, you really can’t kill him,” said Angie, leaning back against the couch. 

“Ange, I  _ really _ can,” assured Peggy. 

“Call him first to find out what’s going on,” suggested Angie. 

“I know  _ exactly _ what’s going on!” hissed Peggy. “Howard has allowed his bigotry to hurt his child so much that he didn’t feel safe going back to his own home! Do you know how long it’s been since we’ve actually seen Tony?”

“‘Course I do,” sighed Angie. “I’ve missed him just as much as you.”

“Four years! Tony went through a traumatic event, something that will have lasting effects for the rest of his  _ life _ , and the safest place he had to go was to someone he hadn’t seen in  _ four years. _ ”

Angie sighed and closed her eyes as she tilted her head against the backrest. 

“What a mess. When did Howard become this person?” she wondered out loud. 

The couch dipped as Peggy sat next to her and leaned her head on her shoulder. 

“He’s always had a problem with guides,” said Peggy. “When we first met back in the war, he didn’t trust me until I’d saved his life. Twice. And even after that he was always a little suspicious that I was going to, oh I don’t know, hypnotize him or control his mind, or whatever stupid thing it is people think guides can do.” 

“But still,” said Angie. “When he and Maria used to have us over for dinner, he was never outright hostile. I just can’t reconcile the man we used to eat with as someone who would abandon their child in the middle of a zone.”

“The last few years… Howard never really handled Maria’s death. He hasn’t actually taken a call from me in over a year. I leave him a message, and he calls back when he knows I can’t answer and leaves his own message… and his messages are almost always about the search for Steve’s body.” Grief cut through Peggy, not softened by the years, but easier to handle with Angie at her side. 

Angie put her hand up to Peggy’s head to gently massage her scalp. Peggy thought again about the jumble of fear and heartache that Tony had been projecting. Some of it was clearly due to the trauma of the day but underneath… there was a numbness that had settled into him, in a way that Peggy could hardly stand to feel. Her godson deserved so much better. 

“I should have pushed harder for a visit,” Peggy said quietly. “When he said that he and Tony needed time alone to process Maria’s death, I should have called him on his shit. Right then. I don’t know what I was waiting for.”

Angie made gentle shushing noises. 

“That’s that, sweetheart. He’s here with us now, and now we know better. All we can do now is help him move forward.”

Peggy sighed. Angie was right. She needed to come up with a plan to teach the youngest, smartest, most ill-equipped guide in the US how to control his adolescent, chemical haywire brain. 

And she needed to call Howard. 

“I’m going to need coffee, darling.”

“Then you better make yourself a pot.”

“Such cruelty,” Peggy pretended to mourn.

Angie pressed a smacking kiss to her wife’s forehead. “It’s my cold, cold heart. You make your coffee, I’m gonna look through my recipes. Our boy looks like he could use a few dozen square meals.”

* * *

Tony slept through the afternoon, not waking up until he heard his phone ringing. He fumbled, checking the screen and seeing Pepper’s name. 

“‘Lo,” he grumbled.

“What the hell Tony, you promised you’d call!”

Tony grimaced. Shit. 

“Sorry Pep, things got… well. I’m at Aunt Peggy and Angie’s house right now.”

“Aunt- what? Aren’t they your godmothers? I thought you didn’t see them anymore? Wait, you know what, don’t answer that, go back to the beginning and start there.”

Tony turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling as he recited the events of the morning. Pepper silently listened throughout. 

“… and then she told me to go take a nap. They still have a bedroom for me here. I thought Angie was joking about the robot bedsheets, but she totally wasn’t. I kind of love them.” His fingers ran over the sheets, pausing to rub back and forth over one of the robots with an antenna on its head. 

“Of course you do. Oh Tony,” she sighed. “I’m so sorry that happened.”

Tony shrugged, despite the fact that she couldn’t see it. “I should have considered what would happen if I were a guide. I didn’t really think about it. Howard’s never really had the best opinion of them. Remember that guide registration bill they were trying to pass two years ago? He kept having dinner with the senator that was pushing it.”

“I can’t believe he’s even more of a shitty father than I realized.”

Tony sighed, rubbing his eyes.

“Pepper…”

“I’m not trying to put you in a position where you have to defend him, because lord knows that’s impossible, but yes Tony. His actions were objectively terrible. In Rhode Island and Massachusetts, abandoning someone alone in the middle of a zone is legally considered abuse, and if that person never comes back out of the zone, it’s murder.”

Tony lay there in shocked silence. 

“He’s not abusive,” Tony said, the words falling out of his mouth unprompted.

“Tony…” Pepper went silent for a moment. “This is probably not a conversation we should be having after the day you’ve had. But just… when you’re feeling up for it, think about the way he talks to you, okay? And consider how you would feel using those words on someone else. And… look, we never talked about it, but I know he hit you after that time you got detention last year.”

“That one doesn’t count.” The words were automatic and out of his mouth before he’d thought about it. “It wasn’t really a hit, it was just like… like a chastisement.”

“Being chastised doesn’t leave a bruise on your cheek,” Pepper said quietly. 

Tony stayed silent. His mind was stuck buffering. Howard wasn’t… he wasn’t an abuser. Was he? Sure, he was shitty at parenting without mom and today had been a real dick move, but it wasn’t  _ abuse _ . His dad had just been upset. And people spanked their kids all the time. Of course they usually stopped by the time their kid was 16, but then Tony had always been a provoker. It wasn’t like it happened often. It wasn’t like he didn’t deserve it. 

“Tony? You still there?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here. I should probably go though, let Peggy know I’m awake.” He needed to get away from this phone call desperately. 

“…okay.” Pepper sighed. “I’m really sorry if I just made everything worse. Call me again tomorrow, alright Tony?”

“Yeah, sure. See you Pep.” Tony hung up. He scrubbed a hand over his face. 

Pepper was being dramatic. It was just… he had other things to worry about anyway. Determined, Tony pushed the conversation to the back of his mind and headed out of the bedroom. 

* * *

“Hey sleeping beauty! Pegs, look, we got our very own Princess Aurora!” Angie called from the kitchen into the living room as Tony shuffled in and sat at the table. 

“I’m fine with that,” Tony said gamely. “Sleeping Beauty got the best deal; she just fell asleep until the whole monster thing was taken care of, and got woken up by a kiss from a hot prince. Sounds like a sweet gig to me.”

“Yes, well, unfortunately your problems aren’t going to be solved by sleeping and kisses, dear,” said Aunt Peggy as she came into the kitchen with two notebooks and a binder. She set down the binder and one of the notebooks in front of Tony. 

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“I’m fine.”

Peggy raised an eyebrow. Tony huffed. 

“My head still hurts a little, but I’m really fine,” he said. 

She nodded, finding that a satisfactory answer, and pointed to the binder. 

“Those are the guidelines for New York Enhanced Senses Education. Only half of it is for guides, but I recommend reading all of it. As a guide you are almost certainly going to need to pull a sentinel out a zone someday, and it’ll be easier if you understand the ins and outs of how their senses work.” She pointed to the notebook. “That is for you to record notes on our lessons.”

Tony started to flip through the binder. “Our lessons?” he asked curiously. 

“I don’t trust anyone else with your education. You’re far too brilliant and young to throw at any old instructor.”

Tony’d had just about enough of hearing how young he was. “I’m not  _ that _ young.” he muttered. 

Peggy looked at him sharply. 

“While you may be smarter than most 16 year olds, your brain is still developmentally very much that of a 16 year old. That changes things dramatically, but we’ve no way of knowing exactly  _ how _ because of how little research has been done on the subject. I’m planning on holding most of your lessons at S.H.I.E.L.D. I think properly training you so you don’t end up as a super villain falls under our purview, and I’m going to want S.H.I.E.L.D.’s resources available to us.”

“What!” said Tony, indignant. “I’d never become a ‘super villain!’’ he used finger quotes around the words before crossing his arms. “Their doomsday devices never work and mine obviously would. That makes  _ me _ the victor and also the one who writes the history, which would  _ clearly _ call me the hero.”

“Oh hush,” said Peggy with a small smile. “We all know the real reason you’d never become a super villain is because if you did, Angie would give you lecture so severe that your ears would fall off. And she’d do it in Italian to prove just how disappointed she is.”

This was one hundred percent correct, but Tony would never admit it. The word “disappointed” did remind him of something, though. 

“So… have either of you talked to my dad today? He hasn’t called my phone,” he said, eyes nervously darting down to the table before glancing back at his godmother. 

Angie and Peggy exchanged a look and Tony’s stomach dropped. 

“He knows you’re here with us,” said Peggy. “I’d actually like to talk with you about that. Howard has continued to react… poorly.” Peggy felt a wave of crushing despair sweep over Tony, but noted how blank his face remained. It was concerning, to say the least. “Tony, it’s not a good idea for you to go back to the mansion. I’m not sure what it’s been like up until now, although I could make a guess, but after today I imagine that Howard will not be able to provide you with an acceptable home life. Obviously the choice is yours, but Angie and I would love it if you would stay here with us.”

Angie came to stand next to Peggy, putting one hand on her shoulder and Peggy’s hand went up to grip her wrist as Angie said, “We’ve already got your room set aside for you. You’ll be havin’ lessons with Pegs here nearly everyday for a while anyway, and it’ll be easier for you to hitch a ride to S.H.I.E.L.D. with her if you’re living here.” She took a deep breath. “We missed you the last few years,  _ Patatino _ . We’d really love to have you stay.”

Tony still sat there, heart racing. Peggy said the choice was his, but he seriously doubted that Howard would actually take him back. Even if he did, Tony couldn’t imagine it would be… good. 

But the thought of not returning to the mansion… to the last place he saw his mother… the place where he’d last hugged her and heard her sing...

Tony lifted a hand to run through his hair, saw his hand was shaking, and quickly closed it into a fist and lowered it into his lap. He thought about what Pepper had said, and all the things Aunt Peggy had carefully not said.

“Yeah.” His voice was quiet. Then, a little louder, “Yeah, I guess I’d hate for those robot bed sheets to go unused. At least… at least until my lessons are done. After that…” he trailed off, staring at the table. 

Peggy sighed in relief as Angie clapped her hands together in joy. “Well, this calls for a celebration dinner!” said Angie brightly, doing her best to brush the tension over into a corner. “And more importantly, celebration dessert! How do you feel about zeppole?”

_ -Two Hours Earlier- _

Peggy emptied her second cup of coffee and dialed again. To her surprise, this time the line clicked on after the fifth ring. 

“Howard, how gracious of you to finally pick up your phone.”

“Din’t give me much choice, did’y,” Howard slurred. Peggy wondered how many bottles deep he was. “Kep’ callin n callin’. Phone’s gonna ring off my damn desk.”

“Yes, funny thing about that, I kept calling because I actually need to speak with you. That’s what phone calls are for, you see,” Peggy said with the sharp bite of impatience in her voice. “Tony is here.”

Silence.

“Howard?” Peggy checked the phone to make sure he hadn’t hung up. “ _ Howard. _ ”

“What? What d’you want from me? He probly already told you everything, never can shut up when it’s somethin’ no one needs to know.” The bitterness in his tone was rancid. 

“ _ Excuse _ me?” said Peggy, appalled. 

“A  _ guide _ ,” he spat. “Here I was, thinkin’ I might be able to make him the next Steve Rogers, and he turns out to be one a’  _ you _ . Climbing into people’s heads, fuckin’ with their minds. Y’ wanna pretend like you only wan’ to  _ live your own life  _ or  _ help people _ but all you are is  _ dangerous _ .”

Peggy was stunned into silence. 

“I shoulda known. He’s always cryin’ when other people cry. Christ, I always thought he was a smart kid, but he’s prolly just been stealing things outta my head-“

It was as if all the worst and darkest parts of Howard were crawling up from his throat, skittering from his mouth on needle sharp legs. All the parts of him Peggy had ignored, had found disturbing but convinced herself that Howard was working to change- 

All of those bits and pieces had been allowed to spread unchecked until they reformed Howard into a pure version of his worst self. 

Tony had been living alone with this man for  _ four years. _

“Shut up Howard,” Peggy said, voice sharp enough to sever a spine. “You’re clearly drunk, so you need to listen very closely,” Peggy lowered her voice, and spoke cleanly. “If you continue to speak about my godson that way, I will personally see you cut off from every resource you have. I will ensure you’re made into a laughingstock for the entire scientific and engineering communities. The world will come to find the name ‘Stark’ synonymous with ‘worthless.’ And then, when you’ve faded into obscurity and irrelevance, I will pay some entry level probationary agent to walk into your flea infested flat and shoot you. Have I made myself clear?”

There was a shuddery breath over the line.

“You alw’ys were a scary bitch. Never knew what Steve saw there.”

“I’m sending a truck for Tony’s things tomorrow morning. If you don’t wake up in time to let them in, I’ll give them instructions on how to break in. Goodbye Howard.”

Peggy hung up the phone. 

She took a deep breath and gripped the edge of her desk. 

And she cried. 


	4. Chapter 4

The next day, bright and far too early for a July morning, Peggy and Tony were stepping into S.H.I.E.L.D. A young man, dressed in Air Force blues, was waiting in the foyer of her office. He stood and extended his hand as they approached. 

“Director Carter?” he asked.

“Yes. Lieutenant Rhodes, I presume,” Peggy answered. “I’m sorry we haven’t spoken in person before now; I’ve been following your career closely. Lieutenant Rhodes, this is my godson Anthony Stark. Tony, this is Lieutenant James Rhodes of the US Air Force. Don’t shake his hand.”

Tony, who had already been extending his hand, let it drop and raised an eyebrow at his godmother. 

“Are we worried about military cooties now?”

“No, we’re worried about training you on how to handle unexpected touch from a sentinel so you don’t faint.”

“Ex- _cuse_ me, I don’t faint,” Tony objected. “I selectively lose consciousness. Or pass out. ‘Pass out’ is a good phrase for manly-failing-to-stay-conscious.” Tony saw Rhodes twitch a smile before pulling his professional face back on. 

“You’re not a man, you’re a boy,” Aunt Peggy said crisply, “and the only difference between fainting and passing out is gender bias.” Tony shrugged, conceding the point. “Come into my office, you two.” Peggy strode through her door, directing the Lieutenant to close it behind himself. 

“Tony, Lieutenant Rhodes recently finished training under the military’s enhanced senses branch. He’s highly accomplished in every avenue, which is why S.H.I.E.L.D. has been courting him as a liaison,” she nodded in deference to his skills. “But he’s here today specifically because we need a sentinel to help with your training.” 

“You have zone training?” he asked Lieutenant Rhodes. The Lieutenant nodded. 

“Best scores in the course,” he said, bragging a little. “Youngest too, at 21.” Alright, bragging a lot. 

Tony whistled. “Looks _and_ talent!” He aimed his cheesiest wink at the other man. Rhodes looked back, unimpressed. 

“Tony, stop flirting with people who will get arrested for flirting back, and especially stop doing it in front of me,” said Aunt Peggy, rolling her eyes. “Let’s go to the training room and I can finish explaining in there.”

The three of them took a maze of elevators and hallways before winding up in a smallish gym with mats piled in the corner. Peggy nodded toward them.

“Alright, Tony. The goal is for you to be able to hold your own empathic shields by the end of today. It’s the first and most important step to saving your own sanity. On the count of three, I’m going to pull back the shields I’ve been putting up for you since yesterday. You’ll be able to feel Lieutenant Rhodes and possibly myself, although you shouldn’t be alarmed if you can only sense the Lieutenant. As a guide with several decades of experience in undercover work, I’m told that my shields are very, very good,” she said, deservedly smugly. 

Tony was alarmed. “Wait, what? On the count of three? As in ‘one-two-right actually now’? Without any… anything else??”

Aunt Peggy quirked a smile. 

“Sometimes you have to run before you can walk, Tony.”

“It’s fine Anthony, I’ll be right here if there’s a problem,” said Lieutenant Rhodes. 

“Okay, first,” Tony pointed at Rhodes, “I don’t even know you, so I don’t know why you think that should be comforting, and second, if you’re going to be all up in my brain for the next however-long-these-lessons-take, then you definitely need to call me Tony, and third of all HOW does that even make sense Aunt Peggy?” Tony asked incredulously. 

Peggy calmly crossed her arms. 

“Different tactics work differently for different guides. Imagery works for some, for others it’s like flexing a muscle, still others find shielding to be less tangible than that, but we can’t know which will work for you if you have nothing against which to shield yourself.”

“Basically, Tony,” said Lieutenant Rhodes, “we have to toss you into the deep end of the pool to find out which floaty fits around you, but we’ll both be here to drain the pool if we need to.”

Tony stared at both of them. 

“That’s literally the worst metaphor I’ve ever heard. Let’s do it.”

The three of them settled roughly equidistant from each other by a couple of feet. Peggy slowly drew back her personal shields from Tony, sighing a bit as they relaxed back into a more comfortable place for her. 

Tony’s eyes widened. He suddenly understood what Peggy had meant when she said she could feel Tony as soon as she walked in the house yesterday. Despite her warning that Tony might not be able to sense her, he absolutely could. Determination and worry both resonated from her in a tone that Tony couldn’t mistake for anything other than Peggy. 

Next to her, and much stronger, Tony could feel a slightly restless, forced type of patience mixed with a healthy dose of nosy curiosity. Clearly, Lieutenant Rhodes’ rigidness was due to the military and not an in-born personality trait. Beyond the two obvious sources, Tony sensed a kind of background buzzing, but before he could identify it, Peggy began to speak again. 

“I want you to try visualization first. Imagine building a wall out of bricks-“

“Rebar reinforced concrete would be better,” Tony interrupted, still curiously assessing the slowly growing buzz in his head.

Peggy rolled her eyes. 

“Then build it out of concrete if you like; the point is to visualize yourself building an actual shield around your mind. Closing your eyes should help”

Tony took a deep breath, still adjusting to the added sensory input, and closed his eyes. 

Suddenly, the background buzzing turned up it’s volume full blast. He was being pelted by outside emotions from all around the building; amusement from below, stress from the offices above, anxiety and panic down the hall, oh my god the _panic_ what was _happening-_

Tony didn’t realize his knees had buckled until the panic suddenly cut off, leaving a ringing emptiness in his head, and he noticed that he was kneeling. 

“Tony! Tony, are you alright?” Tony had never seen Peggy so alarmed, which in turn made him tense up again.

“What? What’s happening?” He looked around for the source of the panic from a moment ago. But… it hadn’t been coming from Peggy or Rhodes, had it? “I think something is happening down the hall, we need-“

Peggy frowned and pulled her phone from her pocket. There were no messages. 

“I would have been notified if there were an emergency. What did you feel, Tony?” She peered closely at her godson, noting the deep worry on his face. 

Tony, not at all assured by his Aunt’s words, drew shaking hands over his face. 

“I- you pulled back the shields and I- you were there. I could feel you, I knew it was you, and then I felt Rhodes, and then-“ He looked at the door, itching to get up and go check on whatever was causing the panic. “At first there was kind of a buzzing? A buzzing, I guess, in the background, but then I closed my eyes and suddenly- I swear, Aunt Peggy, it came from down the hall, further away from the elevators, someone is _really_ freaked out. Someone is panicking _hard_. What if-

As he had spoken, understanding dawned on Peggy’s face, only to immediately change to concern.

“We have some therapy offices down the hall,” she said slowly. “It’s not uncommon for agents to suffer flashbacks during a session, which usually comes with a considerable dose of panic.” She looked away, toward the door that led to the hallway, chewing her lip in a rare moment of obvious worry. “I think… there’s a chance that you’re a bit sensitive, Tony. More so than the average guide.” 

Tony looked at her blankly. 

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is that I chose this room specifically because it’s well outside the average distance that empathic senses can normally reach. What I mean is… it’s very, very important that you learn how to shield.”

* * *

Tony didn’t learn how to shield that day. 

Or the next day. 

On the third morning that he was supposed to head to S.H.I.E.L.D. for a lesson, he woke up and considered just moving into the middle of nowhere, someplace he wouldn’t _have_ to shield; maybe he could get one of those tiny San Juan islands all to himself. 

Tony had spent yesterday afternoon digging up all the current knowledge of enhanced senses. He learned that what had happened during the test with Ms. Kumar was extremely uncommon. At least, the part where he empathically connected with Howard. Almost exclusively, guides only sensed sentinels and other guides. There were a few documented cases of a guide connecting with a non-enhanced person, and those were usually because they already had a deep interpersonal relationship. 

This was definitely not the case with Tony and Howard. 

In fact, in his rifling through medical journals, case studies and even personal anecdotes, Tony only came across one other occurrence similar to what he’d done with Howard four days ago. In 1917, a girl had come online early like Tony, at the age of 15. She had immediately fallen into an empathic connection with her neighbor, who had recently returned from the war with shell shock. She lost her mind to the zone and died four days later. 

So that was a bummer. 

Tony looked around his room. It was definitely _his_ room, now. Monday evening, the movers had delivered everything: his clothes, books, tools, projects. Everything. So far he had done a solid job of ignoring the fact that this wasn’t what someone did when they were just moving in for a few weeks, but right now he took comfort in having familiar things around him. Finally, with a sigh, he heaved himself out of bed and got ready for another day of mental beating. 

* * *

“Wakey wakey,” Tony heard. On the floor. Fucking _again_. 

“Uuuggghh,” he groaned, rolling over onto his stomach to bury his face in his hands. Tony’s body ached. He usually dropped like a bag of rocks during a zone, but he refused to start out on the ground. It felt like giving in somehow. 

The other, extraneous sounds he had heard upon coming out of his zone started to bleed away. Lieutenant Rhodes sat next to Tony on the mat. Peggy had to be in her office all day today, so it was just the pair of them making zero progress instead of all three of them making zero progress. Well, maybe a _little_ progress. He didn’t need Aunt Peggy’s shields when they were in the practice room anymore, but everything always went to shit the minute he closed his eyes or touched the Lieutenant. 

“Man,” said Rhodes. “You are _really_ bad at this.”

Tony lifted his head up to glare at him. Rhodes just grinned. 

“It’s actually kind of a relief for me, y’know. Here I am, fresh out of the academy, already being asked to work with the shadiest of shady government agencies, entirely filled with people who can kill me with a look. Then the director, Big Fuckin’ Director, of this agency, tells me she wants me to personally oversee the hush-hush guide training of her godson, who just happens to be that one kid genius that everyone’s talking about. So, I’m just saying: You’re bad at this, but that’s not a bad thing. Just means you’re human.” 

Tony squinted at him. 

“If you think that’s comforting, then I think pulling me out of a zone four times in one morning has fried your brain.” 

Rhodes laughed and patted him on the back, careful to keep his hand on top of the shirt. 

“C’mon. Up, let’s go again.”

“Rhoooooodes,” Tony whined. “Rhodey-Rhodes. Rhodaload. Have mercy on me. The little baby Jesus-“

“You’re an atheist.”

“-wants you to bless the little children, Rhodey. I’m baby. Bless me with a break.”

Rhodes shook his head. 

“Come on, let’s trade, you give me a break and I’ll get you whatever you want. Concert tickets?”

“No, get up.”

“New car?”

“No, get up.”

“Sexual favors?”

“You literally just referred to yourself as a baby, are you fucking serious? No, Tones, get up.”

Tony’s eyes lit up. 

“Oh, _‘Tones,’_ I like that one, you’re allowed to call me that.”

“I would’ve called you that anyway, get up.”

Tony popped himself into a sitting position, but didn’t get all the way up. He grabbed the binder Aunt Peggy had given him on Sunday and flipped it open again. 

“There’s gotta be a method in here I haven’t tried. Visualization, texture association… did I try centered deflection?”

“Yep, on Monday… Y’know, maybe that’s the problem here. We haven’t tried doing it your way. What do you usually do when you have a problem? You build circuit boards and shit, what do you do when you have an engineering problem?” asked Rhodes. 

Tony shrugged. 

“I math at it until I know the answer.”

“You ‘math at it’?” Rhodey asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“It’s an academic term,” answered Tony with a sniff. 

“…Alright then. Look at it like an equation. ‘Math at it’ until you find the correct density of shield that’ll work for you, or something like that.” 

Tony furrowed his brow. Maybe…

“Yeah, okay. This still means I need a break though. And a pen. And a scientific calculator.”

Rhodey left Tony at a desk, scribbling away furiously, and went to go get fig newtons from the vending machine. On his way back, he idly speculated how much longer he’d get to stay here before being shipped overseas. Director Carter was no doubt pulling her weight to keep him here, but it couldn’t last forever. He was starting to think he might miss the kid when it was time to go. He didn’t seem to have many other people to talk to. 

As soon as he opened the door to the practice room, Tony leapt up from the desk and came rushing toward him. 

“I did it! I totally figured it out!” Tony’s eyes were shining, and he looked every bit like a 16 year old who shouldn’t have had to deal with this bullshit yet. “I took the density of a human skull and-“

“You mathed at it,” laughed Rhodey. “Good job, Tones!” 

Tony flushed under the praise. 

“It’s not- I mean, I should have thought of this at the beginning, and I don’t even know if it’s gonna help-“

“Then let’s try. Let me know when you’re ready,” Rhodey said encouragingly. 

Tony set himself across from the sentinel and took a deep breath, imagining his head encased in a gold-titanium alloy that would deflect almost anything. He held out his hand for Rhodey to touch, and braced himself. 

There it was. He could feel the presence of Rhodes, but it wasn’t overwhelming. He felt as though he could ignore it. Encouraged, Tony went another step further and closed his eyes. 

Emotions swirled around him, but the imagined empathy “helmet” did it’s job. He was alone in his head. Tony burst out in giddy laughter. He hadn’t felt this in-control since last Thursday, when the decision about testing had been taken out of his hands. He opened his eyes. 

“It works, Rhodey. It fucking works!!” 

Rhodey grinned. “I can tell. Great work, Tones, that’s something to be proud of.”

Tony grinned back. 

Rhodey rubbed his hands together. 

“Alright, you’ve got shielding, so let’s move on to projection…”

* * *

The rest of the week moved like that. Tony encountered no more serious stumbling blocks, in fact breezing through a lot of the needed skills for a guide. By Saturday however, he was ready for a break. 

After sleeping until 11 and eating three bowls of Honey Smacks, he went to find one of his aunts. 

Eventually he found them both outside in the garden, Peggy swearing at the thistles and Angie muttering threats to the dandelions as she yanked them up. Tony stood there, amused at the two of them before Angie threw a pair of gloves at him without looking up. 

“Get down here and help me get rid of these awful things. No respect for growing where they’re not wanted, violating my hostas, deceitful little bastards with their bright yellow flowers that turn into floating nightmare seeds…” she continued to mutter under her breath as Tony chuckled. 

They weeded together quietly for a bit until Tony remembered why he’d come to find them. Suddenly he was nervous. He wanted to ask if Pepper could come over, but he also didn’t want to inconvenience them. They had already welcomed him into their home, what kind of a person would ask for more on top of that? And Pepper and him would definitely be in their space. This house wasn’t like the Stark mansion, where Tony knew for a fact that someone could hide for a month without anyone finding them. This house was just big enough for the three of them, and they probably didn’t want to have any other-

“Tony, just ask whatever it is you came out here to ask,” said Aunt Peggy. 

Tony looked up at her, wide-eyed. She smiled, and said “No you’re not projecting, but you are speaking volumes with your squirming. What did you want to ask?”

“Can, uh, could I have my friend Pepper over? It’s fine if you don’t want-”

“Can she pull weeds?” asked Aunt Angie. Peggy lightly whapped her over the back and Angie giggled. 

“Of course you can have a friend over, and no we’re not going to make her pull weeds,” said Peggy. “Is Pepper your girlfriend?”

Tony scrunched his nose and shook his head. They had tried dating just after they met when they were 14, but it became obvious pretty quickly that Pepper was a huge lesbian, and honestly back then Tony had needed friendship more than anything else anyway. 

“Well, feel free to invite her over any time. Angie’s making lasagna for dinner to make up for that comment.”

“Like hell I am, do you feel how hot it is already? It’ll be a million degrees by dinner time, there’s no way I’m turning on the oven,” Angie said, disgruntled, before looking over at Tony. “You should absolutely invite her to stay for pizza delivery though.” 

Tony grinned. He loved it here. 


	5. Chapter 5

The Asset was still as he watched his primary target. The secondary target had not been seen by surveillance for over a week. There was presumed correlation between the missing secondary target, the moving van that had appeared several days ago, and the primary target’s current state of inebriation, but the correlation was not enough to halt the mission. 

The Asset catalogued the primary target’s signs of liver failure and rate of alcohol consumption, and considered that if the handlers were willing to wait, then it would only be another year or less before the target neutralized himself. 

That wasn’t what the handlers wanted, however, and the primary target would not drink himself to death in the next three days. 

The Asset moved. 


	6. Chapter 6

“Zoning!” said Rhodey enthusiastically on Monday morning. “You zone, I zone, your aunt zones, hell I heard even Captain America zoned. When you zone, you basically do your best to get your shields back up until either you come out of the zone yourself or a sentinel helps pull you out. But what the fuck are you going to do if a sentinel starts to zone around you?”

“… find someone who knows what the hell they’re doing and tell them?” said Tony hopefully. 

“No, you only do that after you’ve done your damn best to pull them out yourself. The more time spent in a zone, the harder it is to pull out of, so getting ‘em out fast as possible is key. Besides, I doubt you’d be able to stop yourself anyway. The urge to help out is pretty instinctual for anyone with enhanced senses, empathic or physical. Alright, you’ve read the basic instructions on what to do, you’ve got your Aunt’s emergency number on speed dial if it turns out you suck at this, let’s go.”

Tony, now used to the sink-or-swim methods of guide training, braced himself. 

Rhodey deliberately threw out his hearing as far as it could go. He heard conversations throughout the building, cars on the street, and there, that hissing… was that an espresso machine across the street? Everything else faded away until all that was left was the sound of steam hissing...

“Shit,” muttered Tony, despite knowing this was part of the plan. “Shitshitshit.” He took a deep breath and lowered his shields a little. There was Rhodey, his empathic signature narrowed down to a single point of focus, tension ratcheting up the longer he stayed there. Tony found his instincts taking over. It was just like the day he was tested; he automatically reached out for the constriction and laser focus, loosening it with calm and tranquility. Not as if to say “go to sleep,” but more like “you’re safe here, you can open your eyes.” As he did it, he felt something settle within himself as well. He was taking care of the problem, taking care of Rhodes. He was _fixing_ it. 

For the first time, Tony saw his guide status as a benefit, instead of just something to be handled. 

Rhodey floated back into his mind, feeling undeniably comfortable and relaxed. 

“Holy shit Tones, I feel _great_ . You’re a natural at this, how long did it take you?” Rhodey looked down at his phone to check the time. Three minutes had passed. “Holy _shit_ , Tones!!” he repeated with fervor. “I’ve never seen- wait, are you alright?” Tony was obviously tense, internally struggling with something. 

“I can’t get my shields back up.” Tony was scrambling. Just after Rhodey had come back to himself and Tony had let go, everything else had come pouring in. _Everything._ Emotions from everyone in the building pounded at Tony as he frantically tried to pull his shields back together. Slowly, painfully slowly, they faded away, until all that was left was Rhodey- but Tony couldn’t shut him out. He could feel the sharp concern coming from him, threatening to overwhelm him, and it panicked him enough for a final shove at his shields. 

Finally, silence. He abruptly plopped down on the floor, leaning his head into his hands. 

“That was exhausting. Not the zone part, that was easy, but it was like once I gave my mind permission to welcome you in there, I couldn’t get you to leave. What the hell. Why isn’t my mind a more hostile environment.” He rubbed at the center of his forehead. 

Rhodey looked at Tony, concerned. He'd seen Tony knocked down by zones 6 times in a single morning, and he hadn't looked so tired even then. He watched as Tony pressed on his forehead harder. 

“Fuck,” Tony whispered fervently. There was a familiar tightness in his head, a specific feeling that said to him _hey asshole you didn't have any plans today right? Of course you didn't, what could be more important than laying on the floor of a pitch black bathroom and wishing for death?_

“I think I’m getting a migraine,” Tony admitted. He suddenly realized that his medication hadn't been delivered with the rest of his things a week ago. He was up shit creek without a sumatriptan paddle. “ _Fuck_ ,” he whispered again. 

Suddenly in Professional Military Mode, Rhodey knelt down next to Tony. 

“Ok, let's get you to medical. Can you walk?” 

Tony wanted to be annoyed, but the truth was that migraines did affect his balance sometimes. 

“Just let me lean on you and pretend I’m walking completely by myself,” he grumbled. He probably only had about twenty minutes before the migraine hit full force. 

Rhodey helped Tony off the ground and let him lean as they walked, discreetly texting Director Carter as they made their way down two floors to the medical facilities. While Tony was obviously familiar with the routine of his migraines, Rhodey was still sure she would want to know. 

They made it to a bed just as Tony felt the first true spikes of pain and nausea starting to hit. The attending nurse practically threw an emesis tub at him before rushing to get the Zofran and Imitrex. Rhodey hovered in the corner as Tony squeezed his eyes shut and pressed as hard as he could on various spots of his head. 

He saw the director rush in and beckoned her over to the room. 

“Debrief,” she demanded, eyes piercing him before turning to watch the nurse like a hawk. 

Rhodes straightened up further, and spoke concisely. “We did a first run at assisting a sentinel out of a zone, as planned. He did amazing- perfect, really. Three minutes on his first try, and I felt great. He struggled to get his shields back up afterward though, and immediately after that he realized he was getting a migraine. We proceeded here, and the nurse has just begun to administer Zofran and Imitrex intravenously.” 

Peggy took a deep breath. 

“Thank you Lieutenant Rhodes.” She gazed at her godson. “You can leave early. I don't think Tony will be up for any more lessons today.” 

Rhodes hesitated. 

“If it's alright with you, I’d rather stay and make sure he's going to be fine.” 

Peggy looked over at him. Rhodes didn't know what she was looking for, but apparently she found it, because she nodded her acquiescence. 

* * *

It was 40 minutes until Tony was comfortable opening his eyes, and another hour before he felt like he could talk. IV Imitrex always made his throat tight to the point of pain; nowhere near as much pain as a migraine though, so he would take what he could get. 

“You know she's not gonna pay you overtime for this right?” he mumbled. Rhodey’s head whipped up from his phone, and he grinned at Tony. 

“Who says I’m paying him at all?” said Peggy before Rhodey could respond, as she came back into the room with coffee and a file tucked under her arm. 

“The only payment I need is the delight of your company, Tones. And also free cookies,” Rhodey said as he snagged a package of fig newtons that Peggy tossed to him. 

Tony watched as Aunt Peggy sat down on his other side and opened the file to leaf through it with pursed lips. 

“Why didn’t you tell me how often you get migraines, Tony?”

Tony shrugged. 

“It’s not a big deal as long as I have my medication… and I can get to it in time… and I haven’t eaten anything in the last couple of hours. But really, I’m fine as long as I have my pills.” Tony frowned. “Dad must have forgotten to send them. He might not even know they exist, actually. He didn’t really care about the migraines until he found out they might be a precursor to enhanced senses.” 

Peggy’s lips pinched further. 

“I see your neurologist mentioned that two Thursdays ago… the same day Howard scheduled your test I presume.”

“Hey, is that my medical records? Does patient-doctor confidentiality mean nothing to S.H.I.E.L.D.?” Tony craned his neck to get a look inside the folder. Peggy closed it and looked at him sternly. 

“The most information contained here is based in how _little_ information there is. I’ve wanted to set you up for a full physical anyway. We need to follow your brain development closely. If these migraines are being triggered by your actions as a guide, we need to know.”

Tony sighed, and several hours later he continued to sigh as he and his aunt finally sat down to look at the new MRI and blood work results. The doctor who had been orbiting the tests all day sat down across from them and passed the MRI images over. She looked directly at Tony. 

“Your perithalamus is huge.”

“That’s not the only thing that’s- oomf!” Tony shot a wounded look at Peggy, who retracted her elbow and gave him a flat look. 

“No.” 

The doctor ignored this, and continued on. 

“It’s only noticeable from certain angles, so I can see why it was missed in your first scan. Obviously being a guide online so early is extremely uncommon, so we have nothing to compare it to, but I believe that you were so easily triggered into coming online early because of your enlarged perithalamus.” The doctor frowned. “You test administrator, Ms. Kumar? It says in her file that she had barely started the test before it went off the rails.”

“Wow, patient confidentiality really doesn’t mean anything to you guys. It’s not like she needed to finish it, it became pretty obvious what I was when I zoned in on my dad,” responded Tony. 

“Which is also something I’d like to talk to you about: you’re sure it was Howard Stark that you zoned in on? There wasn’t a sentinel nearby that you could have been reading?”

Tony looked at Aunt Peggy uncomfortably.

“I’m pretty sure. He was right there in the room and… I mean, it’s hard to mistake my dad for anyone else. He’s pretty unique.” 

“And you’ve empathically sensed other non-enhanced individuals since then?”

“... Yes.” 

The doctor furrowed her brow.

“This… this is the real complication.” She looked down and clenched her jaw before looking up at Peggy. “Permission to go dark for this conversation?”

Peggy’s face was blank as she silently pulled out a jamming device, placed it on the table, and nodded at her employee.

“As a doctor, I cannot recommend that you investigate this, at least not until your early twenties. Between your enlarged perithalamus and your extremely early guide status, I can only recommend that you perform the most basic necessary guide functions with care, or you risk bumping something out of sync and falling into a zone that no one can pull you out of.” She took a deep breath. “However, as a scientist of S.H.I.E.L.D., I also have to recommend that we pull on this string. The espionage possibilities of someone who can empathically read _anyone_ , not just the slim portion of the population who have enhanced senses… it could make or break hundreds of missions for us. There’s also all of the research that could only be done here for the first time… the situation is clearly fraught with both implication and complication.” The doctor sat back and placed both hands on her desk, having laid her thoughts bare. 

“You don’t believe the empathic reading of non-enhanced individuals is temporary?” Aunt Peggy asked slowly, face giving away nothing. 

The doctor shook her head. 

“I don’t believe so. Obviously we can only know for sure with time, but… these readings are not like anything else I’ve seen.”

Tony couldn’t take it all in. It sounded like he was living on the knife’s edge, and he might be pushed straight down onto the blade by the organization his godmother directed. But… maybe that was his responsibility. If he was the only person who could save lives with his freaky big perithalamus, then didn’t he have a duty to do that? And what if other people came online early? They would be in a better position if they had research to read about their own situation. 

He didn’t want to be dissected. 

He also didn’t want to be selfish.

But he was. He _was._

Tony felt like he couldn’t breathe. 

Aunt Peggy put a hand on his back and slowly rubbed it in circles, staring into the middle distance between the desk and the wall behind it. 

“Thank you for your advice, and your discretion,” Peggy said to the doctor. “If you need anything from today’s recordings of your office, get it now. As soon as I get to my office I’m locking all of the tapes from today. Tony, it’s time to go home.”

Tony nodded and heavily got up from his chair. 

“Oh, wait, one more thing,” said the doctor, shuffling through the papers. 

Tony wearily looked back at her. 

“Here it is,” she held up another paper. “Your blood work came back mostly normal, but you should avoid eating sulfites. It looks like they’re probably also a migraine trigger for you.”

Tony stared at her, and then he couldn’t help it. He laughed. He laughed the whole way back to Peggy and Angie’s house, and if it had a hysterical edge, at least no one mentioned it. 

As soon as they walked in, Tony went to the cupboard and pulled out the trail mix he’d had for breakfast. He opened the bag and started picking out the dried cranberries one by one and tossing them into the trash. He could hear Peggy speaking with Angie in the living room, showing her pictures from the MRI. He ignored it and continued tossing the cranberries into the trash. He was three quarters done with the bag when they both came into the kitchen. Angie also went straight to the cupboard and pulled out the molasses, dumping it into the trash, before going to the fridge and grabbing bottled lemon juice, grape juice, an old jar of sauerkraut- Tony stared at her. Then went back to his dried cranberry pogrom. 

“Tony,” said Aunt Peggy quietly. “Tony, are you listening?”

Tony nodded, but continued his task. 

“S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t going to be doing any testing on you. We’re not going to use you, Tony,” she said in a reassuring tone.

Tony looked up. 

“Why not?”

Peggy was taken aback at that. 

“What?”

“Why not use me? If it means that ultimately more lives would be saved, or helped, then-“

“Tony, you are _sixteen_ ,” Aunt Peggy said, appalled. “We have an entire agency filled with experienced adults who have not only volunteered for that job, but tested and trained rigorously for it. Even after all their training, we do our utmost to make their assignments as low-risk as possible. Experimenting on you willy-nilly, or using you as a guide on assignments at risk to yourself would be unconscionable.”

“The doctor obviously thought it was an idea worth mentioning,” Tony said stubbornly.

Peggy sighed. 

“As an employee of S.H.I.E.L.D., she’s obligated to share insights like that. There are several thousand people in the U.S. who would be highly useful to S.H.I.E.L.D. and who it would be highly unethical to hire. We like to know about them; after all, we’re an intelligence organization. But we don’t need to act on the knowledge.” 

“Dad said Captain America-“

“Whatever Howard said about Steven Grant Rogers is probably not only untrue, but downright absurd,” Peggy declared with flared nostrils, like a bull ready to charge down a threat. 

“So Steve Rogers didn’t volunteer to be experimented on for the benefit of the Scientific Reserve?” Tony challenged. He _didn’t_ want to be a lab rat, but he also felt like he needed to be convinced that he _shouldn’t_ want it. “Steve Rogers didn’t sacrifice himself when he knew it would save lives?”

“Steve Rogers was an incredibly brave, selfless man, Anthony, but make no mistake- he was an idiot,” said Peggy firmly. 

Tony’s jaw dropped. 

“He was an idiot who volunteered to become a science experiment because he was desperate to help people,” she continued, “and for some reason couldn’t see that he was already doing that just by being himself. Steve Rogers was also seven years older than you when he made that choice.” Her voice gentled. “And he made it so that the rest of us wouldn’t have to. He would have been incredibly upset to see you pushed into something like this, Tony.”

Tony sat quietly, considering. 

“… so Steve Rogers was an idiot, huh?” he asked. 

Peggy sat back with a look of relief on her face. “He called me a ‘dame’ once, right to my face. What do you think?”

Tony huffed, the corner of his mouth turning up. 

“The reason Steven did as well as he did was one part sheer stubbornness and one part Bucky Barnes,” Peggy continued, nostalgia seeping into a small smile. 

“Barnes?” Tony asked. “Wasn’t he a Howling Commando?”

Peggy nodded. 

“And Steven’s best friend. Quite smart. It’s not often a sentinel chooses to become a sniper; they usually prefer close combat; but Barnes made better use of his senses with his brain. He also flirted with anything that moved and fell in love with every piece of technology he could get his hands on.” Peggy’s eyes moved from the middle distance of memory, to the face of the boy in front of her. “You two would have gotten on like a house fire. Possibly literally.” 

“It doesn’t really sound like he was a… mitigating influence on Rogers,” Tony said, brow furrowed. 

“Oh no, absolutely not,” Aunt Peggy agreed. “However, between the two of them, they were much more likely to have the number of fists needed to get out of whatever scrape they landed themselves in.”

Tony out and out laughed for the first time since that morning. Peggy gave him a soft smile. 

“I have no doubt you’re destined for great things, Anthony,” she quietly assured him. “But what those things are will be your decision, and you have no rush to get there.” 

* * *

That night, Tony flopped into bed early, exhausted. It had been both a physically and emotionally taxing day, and he wanted nothing more than that sweet, sweet oblivion waiting in between his robot bedsheets. 

So when he felt a hand shaking his shoulder, obviously only a few hours after falling asleep, he resisted. 

“Mmm?” he questioned, still mostly asleep. 

“ _Patatino_ , wake up,” came Angie’s voice, her voice sounding strangely thick and hoarse. Tony rolled over and cracked open his eyes. Angie’s face was red and blotchy. 

“Howard was in a car accident. Emergency services were called, but… I’m so sorry _Patatino._ ”


	7. Chapter 7

The cause of the accident was ruled to be driving while intoxicated. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and he’d taken a curve too sharply, and…

The reading of the will was two days later, the funeral another 3 after that. There was no viewing. Howard’s body was… unsuitable for one. Angie and Peggy were still listed as his guardians under Howard’s will, and care of the company would go to Obadiah Stane until Tony was 21. 

Tony remembered being at the funeral, sitting between Peggy and Angie, but he didn’t remember anything else about it. 

Looking back later in life, he was never sure if his father’s death had been a blessing or a curse. Tony would feel the loss of both his parents for the rest of his life, but he’s also sure he would have eventually gone back to stay with his dad if he had lived. He honestly had no idea what would have happened then. Regardless, the choice was taken away from him. 

For the rest of that summer, and weekends home from MIT for the next 5 years, Tony worked out turbulent emotions through sparring sessions with Aunt Peggy and pulling weeds with Aunt Angie. 

When Tony was hospitalized with alcohol poisoning after a party during his first semester, they both sat next to his bed with their grief and fear piercing through his empathic shields, and that was the last time he had more than two drinks in a night. 

When Tony built DUM-E for his capstone project just before his 18th birthday, Angie insisted on calling the ‘bot her grandson, and Tony’s graduation party had a baby shower theme. 

When Tony began work on his doctorate, he started dropping off designs for Obie, who accepted the weapons designs with glee and somehow always managed to lose everything else. 

When Tony defended his dissertation and a member of the board turned out to be an advocate for guide registration, that particular member was granted a sudden leave of absence that Aunt Peggy assured him she had nothing to do with. 

When Tony couldn’t decide how to congratulate Pepper on her MBA, she reminded him that he had an entire company that she was well qualified to work for, and that she would like 4 weeks paid vacation please. 

When Tony turned 21, earned his PhD, and started the slow process of taking over the reins to Stark Industries, Rhodey was there as his liaison to the army, and to make sure he got at least two hours of sleep on the plane to wherever they were going. 

And when Tony began to feel suspicious about certain lost shipments, Obie was there to assure him he’d look into it while Tony went to Afghanistan to do a demonstration.

* * *

There wasn’t a whole lot to say about Afghanistan or the aftermath. Well, there wasn’t a whole lot Tony was  _ willing _ to say about Afghanistan or the aftermath. If you asked, he would say that he’d trusted the wrong person. The trust was repaid with a hole in his chest, three months of “enhanced interrogation,” and Yinsen’s life. That was that. 

But if you were one of the four people Tony  _ still _ trusted, you would have known that the arc reactor and Iron Man suit were only two of the souvenirs he brought back from Afghanistan. 

Tony’s post-Afghanistan paranoia manifested in a number of ways, the worst of which was a need to empathically read  _ everyone _ around him. 

Enhanced senses, no enhanced senses, from the board members of S.I. to the barista who handed him his coffee- for the first few months Tony checked every single person he interacted with for feelings of duplicity. 

He also fell into a zone at least once a day. 

These things were not unrelated. 

Tony was fully aware that he had become everyone’s worst nightmare of what a guide is; delving into the minds of strangers and invading their thoughts. Ironically, he was the only one capable of it, but no one seemed to suspect him. They all assumed the zones had more to do with lingering trauma. 

They weren’t wrong, exactly. Just not right the way they thought they were. 

Slowly, as the months passed, he began to zone less. 

Pepper, Rhodey, and Angie all breathed a sigh of relief, speaking to each other in quiet, relieved tones about how he was managing his paranoia much better these days; how happy they were that he was keeping his shields up.

Peggy never joined these conversations. She was grateful that Tony was zoning less, no question about that. But she knew better than to think he had stopped. 

No, she spent more time with her own shields lowered around Tony these days; and what she felt was always, always on the edge of control. 

He wasn’t keeping his shields up. He was just managing the symptoms better.

* * *

Tony spun around in his godmother’s office chair, tossing the peanut M&M’s he’d stolen out of her desk into his mouth. For every third candy he caught, he reversed his direction in the chair, simultaneously keeping him from getting dizzy or thinking too hard about anything else. 

He’d zoned again that morning, in the middle of a meeting with his CFO. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his CFO, he’d just… he  _ had _ to be sure, of  _ everyone _ , and then his empathy had fallen a little further than he intended and it had taken an hour to pull him out and…. well, he knew Pepper would rat him out if she hadn’t already. He had come to S.H.I.E.L.D. immediately afterward because he wanted both Peggy’s calming influence and a chance to explain to her that it Wasn’t A Big Deal. He could feel her familiar mental signature coming closer to her office, so he quickly stashed the M&M’s back in the desk and returned the chair to its original position. 

Before she was even all the way through the door she said, “First, you’re twenty-two, go buy your own candy, and second, if you’ve changed the height on my chair I’m disinviting you from dinner for the rest of the week.” 

Tony dramatically clutched the arc reactor. “You’d deny a warm, home cooked meal to a poor invalid? How cruel, Director Carter! My heart condition-“

“-your  _ heart condition _ would be better served by you confining your coffee intake to two cups a day and keeping a regular sleep schedule. Also you’re too late, Pepper already called.” She slapped a stack of papers down on her desk with a glare.

Tony cursed under his breath and felt Peggy’s concern and irritation rise considerably. “It’s not-“

Peggy cut him off, hands on her hips.

“I swear to all I hold dear that if you’re about to tell me ‘it’s not a big deal,’ Tony-“

“But it’s not!” Tony rose from the chair to move around the room as he argued. “You’re right about the sleep thing, I probably should have slept last night-“

“You didn’t sleep  _ at all _ ? And you still brought down your shields to go snooping in someone else’s mind,  _ Tony _ -“

“Yes, alright, today was a mistake, I’ll go home and take a nap but it’s  _ fine _ , I’m  _ fine _ , everything’s  _ fine-“ _

Peggy seemed to deflate, her sadness bleeding out all other emotional colors. She sat down heavily in her office chair. 

“You’ve been saying that for the last 6 years, Tony,” she said quietly. “I’m not sure it’s been true even once.”

Tony could practically taste Peggy’s guilt, clearly feeling that she’d somehow failed Tony as his godmother. Tony’s own guilt overtook him in turn, unable to stomach the idea that he was making her feel that way, but unsure how to make it clear that he was entirely at fault. Tony was just… he was fine. His “fine” might include less sleep and more paranoia and a significant amount of panic attacks, but that was down to his own failings, not Peggy. Tony opened his mouth, still unsure of what he was going to say, when Peggy sighed. 

“Let’s go home to Angie,” she said softly. “Come stay with us tonight, we’re having stew.”

Tony, throat tight with emotion, nodded, and they left together. 


	8. Chapter 8

The man in the pressed suit looked over at the handler, frowning. 

“You have the chair ready, right?” he asked. 

The handler frowned back. “Why would we need the chair? He’s just coming out of cryo. Unless he assaults someone-“

“We’re going to need the chair. Get it ready,” the man in the suit snapped. 

The handler looked askance, but went to prep the chair. 

Moments later, The Asset was escorted in by two armed guards. Without waiting for anything else, the man in the suit whipped out a picture of a brunette woman and demanded “Do you recognize her?”

The Asset’s eyes flickered ever so briefly to the chair. 

“No.”

The man in the suit scrutinized The Asset’s impassive face. “Give me all available intelligence pertaining to this woman.”

“Female, greying brunette, brown eyes, late sixties. Further surveillance required.”

The man in the suit studied him for another moment, and then put the photograph into a file he was holding and handed it over to The Asset. 

“This mission is an immediate priority.” 

The man in the suit called the handler back over and pointed a finger in his face. 

“I want the chair to be constantly ready until  _ that-“ _ he jerked his thumb toward The Asset, “is back in cold storage. And you watch him like a hawk, understand me? If he goes the  _ slightest _ step off script, pull him and bring him back here to wipe.”

The handler respectfully nodded, and then rolled his eyes the second the man in the suit left the room. He eyed up The Asset. 

“What the hell is he worried about? That you might suddenly grow a brain?” He snorted. “You’re a gun to point at someone, not the scope to aim it.” The Asset stared blankly back. The handler sighed and gestured the guards closer. “Take him over there to read the report, bring him to me when he’s done. I shouldn’t have to tell you to keep your guns on him. Just because he's a brainless robot doesn’t mean he can’t kill you in two seconds flat.”

* * *

The Asset lay on a roof, watching the primary target and two coincidental targets orbit each other in the kitchen. 

The Asset had lied to the man in the suit. There were consequences for lying. But somehow he knew there would also be consequences for recognizing the woman. Would there be further consequences if he told them he recognized the man in the kitchen with the target?

But…  _ did _ he really recognize him? Or her? Could he be sure? There was something… red lipstick, a red blush, red blood across the pavement…

The Asset reasserted his focus. It didn’t matter. The mission was an immediate priority. Elimination of the target, or there would be  _ consequences _ . 


	9. Chapter 9

As Tony lay on the (now thoroughly worn) robot sheets that night, he wondered if he could hire a chef specifically to learn how to cook exactly like Aunt Angie, or if that would be too insulting to the chef. And even if it was, did it really matter if it meant he could have Angie Meals every night? 

Tony should have been asleep hours ago. He hadn’t slept in something like 40 hours by now, and he knew his shut-down point was coming soon, but until then… his mind raced, leaping from topic to topic, simultaneously solving problems and creating new ones. He held himself perfectly still, keeping his breaths even, hoping that pretending his body was asleep would grant him rest sooner. He let his mental shields drop just a bit, comfortable in this house in a way he was nowhere else, feeling the familiar sleeping signatures of his aunts down the hallway… he began to drift…

His eyes snapped open. 

There was someone else in the house. 

* * *

Tony kept his breaths even. The empathic signature wasn’t like anything he’d ever felt before- it felt two dimensional. Tony could sense that whoever it was was a sentinel, and that they had a singular focus, and that was it. That’s all there was. There was no excitement, trepidation, nothing. 

Tony sucked in an involuntary sharp breath at the  _ wrongness _ he felt, and suddenly felt the emotional signature of the intruder stop their creeping. 

_ Shit, right, a sentinel. _

He dove for the suitcase armor as he heard nearly silent, but incredibly fast footsteps rush down the hall toward his room. He just managed to get his gauntlet on when the door opened and a masked man with a- what the fuck, was that a  _ metal arm?? _ \- silently burst in the room. Tony gleefully put an end to the man’s stealth with a repulsor blast to his legs. It wasn’t how he would have preferred to inform Peggy of an intruder, but it would work. He dove back down to get his chest piece and other gauntlet on. He looked back up just in time to see the intruder rising back to his feet. 

“Woah buddy, are your legs made of metal too? That should have put you down for- hey!!”

A knife came flying at his chest, bouncing off the plate and landing on the ground, where Tony kicked it under the bed. He frantically thought to himself that he better fetch it himself later; he was pretty sure there were still things hidden under there that his aunts never needed to see. And speaking of aunts-

“Drop your weapons, hands in the air!” Peggy commanded, gun pointed straight at the intruder’s head. The intruder turned to look at Peggy, and suddenly Tony felt the singular focus return to him. Fuck. 

Peggy was the target.

Tony, suddenly frantic to get the rest of his armor on in order to protect 25% of his reason for living, almost missed what happened next. 

The intruder dropped the second knife he was holding, raising his hands in the air- and grabbing a gun from his back and quickly aiming at Peggy. Peggy dove back into her bedroom as the first shot went off, and the intruder began to charge after her. 

“Not fucking likely,” muttered Tony, right as his helmet closed, jetting after the soldier and grabbing him from behind, dragging him down the hallway and into the living room. The intruder twisted out of his grasp, and pulled out  _ another _ knife- Jesus Christ, where was he storing all of these?- and started attacking the armor’s joints as Tony tried to get far enough away to get off another repulsor blast. 

Suddenly he heard a  _ BUZZT _ , and a grunt, and the intruder’s arm fell dead. He whirled around to face Aunt Peggy, who was holding a device that looked like the bastard child of a taser and Zeus’s dick. This granted Tony just enough space to aim a repulsor blast straight at the intruder’s back, plowing him into the floor with a bang to the head that would have put down a god. Tony quickly dug out a length of adamantium cable he kept for just such an occasion. 

…Well, maybe not  _ just _ such an occasion. Who the hell could have predicted this? But it was going to be useful anyway. He quickly hog tied the deadweight sentinel and popped up his own faceplate to get a good look at his aunt. 

“Peggy, are you alright? Did he hurt you?”

Peggy just stared at the man on the floor. 

“…Peggy?”

She slowly walked over to a lamp and turned it on, eyes never leaving the man on the floor. She knelt next to his head, Tony tense next to her in case the man woke up and tried something. Peggy undid the clasp on the mask covering the intruder’s face, and then removed that and the goggles he was wearing, before sitting back with a hand covering her mouth. 

_ “Bucky.” _

* * *

Tony had no idea what the hell was going on. It was kind of a novelty, but not so much of one that it wasn’t extremely annoying. He, Peggy, and Angie were all at S.H.I.E.L.D. in Peggy’s office. Peggy was fussing over Angie, apologizing over and over for “bringing work home again.” Angie was fussing over Peggy, demanding to know about any bruises, bringing up something about “that one time you got  _ gored _ and didn’t even  _ tell _ me, you’re still making up for that so you better tell me if he even gave you a  _ papercut! _ ” 

And Tony still hadn’t slept. 

42 hours? 43? 

Whatever. 

He sat on the office couch and choked down the last of the lukewarm coffee he’d snatched as soon as they had entered the building, and tossed the cup in the trash can just as Agent Fury opened the door. He nodded respectfully at his Director and her wife, before rolling his eyes at Tony, who was drooping into the couch cushions. Tony cheerfully flipped him off in response. 

Fury handed a folder to Peggy. “It’s Barnes,” he said. 

Peggy looked just as overwhelmed as when she’d first pulled off the mask. “How?” she asked, even as she began pouring over the small amount of information available in the documents. 

“The current scientific consensus is ‘hell if we know,’” answered Fury. “The arm is clearly a new addition and he’s obviously been genetically modified somehow, but we’ve only had time to compare bloodwork.”

Tony, with immense effort, hauled himself off the couch to peer over Aunt Peggy’s shoulder. 

“ _ ‘Enhanced senses inert’ _ ?” Tony read aloud in disbelief. “No fucking way. He’s definitely an active sentinel. I could feel it from down the hall, not to mention the fact that he came gunning for me for no other reason than an unusually loud breath.”

Fury raised an eyebrow. The one above his eye patch. It was always the one above his eye patch. Tony was pretty sure he did it to draw attention to his scary-ass face. 

“His military file says he  _ was _ a sentinel, but I’ve got three guides downstairs saying there’s nothing there anymore. Whatever happened to that poor bastard, it apparently took away a chunk of him.”

“Bullshit. He’s still unconscious? I can’t believe they can’t feel it while he’s unconscious,  _ I _ could feel it while he was awake and on an assassination job. I’m telling you, he’s definitely still a sentinel.”

Fury looked at him with laser focus for a moment before snapping his attention to Director Carter. 

“Permission to take a civilian downstairs for further evaluation of a prisoner?” he asked in his most respectful voice. 

“Denied,” Peggy answered without even looking up from the file. 

“What! Peggy!!” Tony exclaimed. She closed the file and looked up at him sternly. 

“You last zoned less than 24 hours ago, and you haven’t slept in almost two days now.  _ Denied, _ ” she answered firmly. 

“Your guides are  _ wrong _ , Aunt Peggy. I know it. There’s never going to be a better chance to get a good read of him than when he’s unconscious in a controlled facility, and we both know I’m the most sensitive guide available. I just had coffee, I’m good to go!” Tony hadn’t even realized how badly he wanted to get another view into Barnes’ mind until Fury had suggested it. But yes, he  _ absolutely _ wanted it. 

James Buchanan Barnes. Tony had heard almost as many stories about him as he had about Steve Rogers. Supposedly dead 50 years ago, reappeared with a metal arm, without having aged a day, and apparently a flattened empathic signature that no one else could read? 

He was intrigued to say the least. 

There was also the fact that Aunt Peggy was clearly upset. Tony couldn’t imagine what was going through her mind, but he ached to soothe her. 

“Look, what’s the worst that could happen?” he wheedled. “I go down there, I stand outside the room, lower my shields, and go into a zone that one of your excellently trained staff immediately pulls me out of.” Tony shrugged. “But what’s the  _ best _ that could happen? I go down there, I stand outside the room, lower my shields, and gain an insight into what the fuck happened to Bucky Barnes. I do it now, and it’ll be done before he realizes he’s been taken prisoner- before he can construct any kind of wall around his mind.” Tony could see his Aunt begin to waver. He softened his tone. “Come on Aunt Pegs. He was your friend. Let me help.”

Peggy pursed her lips. “We’ll all go down together,” she said, before looking to Angie for permission. Angie hesitated, then nodded shortly, and they all followed Agent Fury to the lower levels. 

* * *

Wow.  _ Where are they even keeping that many restraints, _ Tony wondered. Barnes was strapped down firmly, to the point of absurdity, on a medical cot. Unnecessarily, at this point, considering that he was still unconscious. 

Tony, Peggy, Angie, Fury, and some sentinel agent named Coulson were all poised in front of an observation window, looking at the still form. There was a silent moment of collective emotion that Tony would have liked to classify as  _ holy-shit-what-is-even-happening-right-now,  _ but probably should have been given more gravitas. 

Which is exactly why Tony clapped his hands together glibly and said, “Who’s ready for some brain spelunking? You, with the enhanced senses, don’t touch me unless it’s real goddamn obvious that I’m not coming up for air by myself. 3-2-1 go!”

And without waiting for anything else, Tony focused on the figure in the observation room and lowered his shields completely.

Once again, there was just… flatness. Tony could feel the extra sensory input that every sentinel experienced, but there wasn’t much more than that. Most people, when asleep, had a variety of complex, floating emotions that flowed along with their dreams. Your brain is always active when you’re asleep, even if you don’t remember it after waking. But Barnes just felt… cold. And actually, that wasn’t a metaphor. Barnes  _ really _ felt cold, didn’t he? Tony dropped his shields further and reached forward empathically. 

Barnes was  _ cold _ . Obviously not physically, but his mind was pretty damn convinced he was freezing. Instinct kicked in, and Tony began wrapping himself around the coldness, sinking warmth and comfort into the mind of the man who’d tried to kill his Aunt a few hours ago. Barnes, unconscious and unaware of any reason not to, greedily accepted the relief. 

Tony sank deeper into the connection, soothing as he went. As Barnes’ mind wrapped itself in the offered comfort, Tony began to feel a dusting of emotion flashing lightly through Barnes’ mind. 

_ Pain.  _

It was getting heavier.

_ Fear. _

The flashes of emotion became swirls, surrounding Tony’s consciousness.

_ Horror. _

Faster, faster.

_ Despair. _

It was becoming a vortex, sucking Tony in. 

_ Anguish. _

His guide nature demanded he stay and fix this, replace the bad with good, but how do you fill a black hole?

_ Desperation. _

Suddenly Tony was standing beside Barnes in the snow. Barnes was holding a gun, pointed at an old man on his knees with his hands in the air, pleading in a language Tony didn’t know. Tony stumbled back a step, frantically looking around. Barnes was mumbling something, and Tony zeroed in on him, coming closer to see tears running down Barnes’ face. 

_ “I didn’t want to, I didn't want to, I didn’t want to,” _ Barnes was repeating over and over as he shouldered the rifle and looked down the scope. 

Abruptly and horribly aware of exactly what was going to happen, Tony yelled “Then DON’T!!”

Barnes closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. Tony held his eyes on Barnes, refusing to look at the old man who had been the target. Barnes opened his eyes and looked directly at Tony. 

_ “But I did.” _

Just as suddenly as he had arrived in the vision, Tony found himself back in front of the observation window in the S.H.I.E.L.D. basement. He doubled over, gasping for air but covering his mouth in an effort to not be sick. 

“ _ Patatino? _ ” he heard Aunt Angie say with alarm. “Tony!”

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” he gasped, grasping the ledge of the observation window and pulling himself upright. He felt something, something was different, he needed to see-

Eyes open, Barnes stared back at him from the table. Tony slammed his shields back up, but it didn’t seem to matter. He could still feel Barnes in the back of his mind,  _ paincoldfear _ . Tony tried again, actually visualizing his alloy helmet, even though he hadn’t had to do that for years. It still wasn’t working.  _ Coldcoldcold _ . Tony stepped back from the window; Barnes’ eyes followed him. Tony stopped for a moment, strung tightly between his self preservation instinct that demanded he get away from the assassin, and his guide instinct that demanded he stay and dive back into the hurricane that resided in Barnes. 

“Tony!!” Aunt Peggy firmly grasped his chin and turned his head to look at her, her expression clearly worried. Tony stared at her for a moment, and then turned on his heel and ran for the stairs.

* * *

Tony woke up at about 2 p.m. after sleeping for 9 hours. He wasn’t granted that moment of peaceful confusion you sometimes experience after sleeping a long time, because as soon as he awoke he felt Barnes’ consciousness in the back of his mind. It was a forceful reminder of everything that had happened last night. He rolled from his stomach onto his back, staring at the ceiling of an overnight room in S.H.I.E.L.D. 

Even after telling Peggy, Angie, Agent Eye Patch, and three separate specialists exactly what had happened, and then finally sleeping for the first time in two days, he still didn’t have any conclusions about the event except for “what the fuck.”

Because honestly, what the fuck. What the  _ fuck _ . 

Peggy, Fury, the specialists, and Tony himself had all agreed that Tony needed to be kept at headquarters for now, for reasons that basically came down to “what if mind control.” What if Barnes was able to control Tony through this constantly open empathic connection, what if Tony unconsciously influenced Barnes through it, what if whoever had sent Barnes used the connection for controlling both of them; they were all real possibilities until they had more data, and Tony knew that the equipment he needed for that was here. Including Barnes. 

There was a quick, efficient rap at the door before Pepper walked in without waiting for a response. Tony heard her heels click over to the bed, and a coffee cup was thrust into his line of sight. 

“I love you,” Tony sighed, reaching for the cup. 

“Coffee doesn’t have feelings, Tony,” Pepper said. 

“Don’t listen to her baby, she’s just jealous,” Tony crooned at the drink she was still holding captive. She raised her eyebrow and waited for Tony to sit up before relinquishing the cup and sitting on the bed. 

“Peggy heavily implied that she would have to kill me if I tried to get into their servers and find out what happened last night, so it would probably be safer for everyone if you just told me why I have to clear your appointment schedule.” She took a sip of her own drink and waited. 

“I Vulcan mind meld-ed with a dead World War 2 vet who tried to kill Aunt Peggy with his metal arm.” Tony took a huge gulp and closed his eyes in bliss. 

Pepper stared at him.

“I guess I’ll just hack their servers then,” she sighed. 

“Really,  _ really, _ don’t do that. I don’t know what would happen in a battle to the death between you and Peggy, and I don’t ever want to find out,” Tony took another huge drink. “You know Captain America’s Howling Commandos? Remember James ‘Bucky’ Barnes?” Pepper nodded slowly. “He’s alive. Somehow. And working as an assassin. But… not willingly? Maybe? I tried to do an empathic read on him while he was unconscious, but… I don’t know what happened, Pep. I got into him, but now I can’t shut him back out. I think I saw one of his memories, which… I mean, what the fuck.” 

Pepper was silent. She took a sip of coffee and stared at the floor. 

“Oh my god, you really did Vulcan mind meld,” she whispered, and then looked sharply back up at Tony. “What do you mean you ‘can’t shut him back out’? You two are still connected?”

Tony nodded. Her mouth dropped open. 

“Tony, can he get into your memories too? Do we need to change the codes for SI security files?”

“... maybe. I don’t think so, but maybe to be safe. Barnes knew that I was there in his memory last night; he looked at me, talked to me. If Barnes were to access my memories, I assume that goes both ways-“

“You know what Angie says about assuming-“

“I’m already an ass. The point is that no one knows anything for sure. As far as we know, nothing like this has happened before- although S.H.I.E.L.D. has a fuckton of hardcopy history files locked away somewhere… I went through some of it when I first came to live with Peggy. There might be something in there…”

Pepper’s phone alarm went off. “Damn it,” she sighed. “I need to get back to SI. I’m headed to your meeting with R&D any particular butts you want me to kick?”

“Ryderson,” Tony said immediately. “He made fun of my beard last week.”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “Are there any particular butts you want me to kick for work related reasons?”

“Nah, they’re doing alright. Just made sure they’re on schedule with the battery upgrades”

“I’ll take care of it. You take care of you, alright?” Pepper stood up and leaned over to kiss the top of Tony’s head, and as she left Tony wondered what he possibly could have done to deserve her as a friend. 

* * *

Tony once again stood in front of the observation window, arms folded and worrying his lip. Barnes was no longer strapped down, but was sitting, staring into the two way mirror directly at Tony. His brow was furrowed, eyes never shifting focus away. 

Tony closed his eyes, and for the first time since waking up, gave full attention to the empathic connection sitting in his mind. The coldness was still there, as was the pain and fear, but more than anything else now there was intense curiosity. Tony followed it as he opened his eyes, and found himself looking directly back at Barnes. 

Well. That was gonna be either a problem or a solution if Barnes escaped. 

“I want to talk to him.”

The rough voice through the speaker startled Tony. Barnes hadn’t spoken since he’d woken up last night. He hadn’t slept or eaten since then either. 

“I want to talk to the guide,” Barnes said again. 

Tony looked at Peggy, who had tense lines etched into her face. She had gone in to question him just after Tony had gone to bed. Barnes hadn’t reacted to her, other than to watch. 

Tony leaned on the speaker button. 

“There are a lot of guides here, you’re gonna have to be more specific.”

Barnes’ attention sharpened. 

“ _ You. _ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all she wrote, folks. And by "she" I mean "me," and by "me" I mean "the ghost of past me, whose actions haunt me on a daily basis."


End file.
